Screeching of seagulls over the fishermen’s sheds, faint hiss and suck of the North Sea at the pebbly Suffolk shore, church bells pealing out, and the chirrup of well-bred voices talking over last night’s music at Snape Maltings – where else but Aldeburgh’s seafront on Sunday morning?
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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We’d been to that concert – Benjamin Britten’s ‘Canticles’ – and had been spellbound. So although you couldn’t really say it was whistleable music, we too had Britten on the tip of our tongues as we passed the modest, sea-facing Crag House where the locally-born composer lived with the tenor Peter Pears from 1947-57, and the churchyard hung with cherry blossom where the two musicians and life-long partners now lie side by side.
Out on the old railway line running parallel with the sea up to Thorpeness, an Irish wolfhound the size of a small pony went loping by on springs. The path snaked along the ruler-straight trackbed between banks of stitchwort, yellow archangel and sky-blue flowers of green alkanet. Skylarks sang over the freshwater meadows beside the line. We pulled up at the big reedy inlet of The Fens, struck still by the spectacle of two marsh harriers quartering the reed beds, gliding, swooping and pouncing, their big pale dark-tipped wings manipulating the air with economical power.
Thorpeness is a curiosity. When Stuart Ogilvie determined in 1910 to create a holiday haven on the Suffolk coast in memory of his mother, he didn’t do things by halves. Stuart and his son Sholto magicked the vernacular dream of Thorpeness around a lake they dug and christened The Meare. Half timbered mini-manors and clapboard cottages form the backdrop to The House In The Clouds, a fabulous water tower disguised as a fairy-tale chalet perched atop a 5-storey house.
We sat over a drink beside The Meare, people-watching, and then took the sandy byway across gorse-strewn Thorpeness Common, where the delicate flowers so aptly named ‘spring beauty’ formed china-white drops on round, saucer-like leaves. Down on the crumbly flint-and-clay cliffs of the coast we turned south for Aldeburgh. The town’s church bells were still ringing out over red roofs, lapwing-haunted marshes, and the long grey strand where a million million pebbles made the endless sea music that Benjamin Britten took for his own.
Start: Moot Hall, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, IP15 5DS (OS ref TM 466569).
Getting there: Bus (firstgroup.com/ukbus/suffolk_norfolk) – 64 or 165 (Aldeburgh-Ipswich), 521 (Aldeburgh-Halesworth Station)
Road: A1094 from A12 between Saxmundham and Wickham Market.
Walk (8 miles, easy, OS Explorer 212. NB: online maps, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): From Moot Hall, up Victoria Road and across High Street. In 150m, right through graveyard (464568, fingerpost). Through gate; on up path. In ¼ mile cross roadway (463573); half left through caravan site (yellow arrow) to old railway path (460575, ‘Permissive Path’). Right along railway path for 1½ miles. At Ward Hill, opposite North Warren nature reserve sign, right (462598, fingerpost) past golf course to road in Thorpeness (471598). Right to The Meare (shop, café). Opposite The Meare, left up The Sanctuary (472596) past gatehouse tower to cross road (473599). Half left along gravel road; follow ‘Byway’ and ‘Suffolk Coast Path’ for 1½ miles to coast near the Dower House (476617). Right for 3½ miles to Aldeburgh.
Lunch: The Meare Shop and Tearoom, Thorpeness (01728-452156); The Regatta, Aldeburgh (01728-452011; regattaaldeburgh.com)
Accommodation: Cross Keys Inn, Crabbe Street, Aldeburgh (01728-452637; aldeburgh-crosskeys.co.uk) – pub with rooms
Aldeburgh Festival: 7-23 June (aldeburgh.co.uk)
Britten Centenary: Until November 2013 (brittenaldeburgh.co.uk)
Snape Maltings: snapemaltings.co.uk
Benjamin Britten Trail around Aldeburgh: brittentrail.org
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk